by Odette Beane
She rolled her head and saw the bars.
Oh.
She was in jail.
In Storybrooke, Maine.
A lean man, evidently the sheriff, stood over by his desk, looking at some papers. When he saw that she was up, he nodded to her. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m Sheriff Graham. And you’re under arrest.”
“Why am I in jail?” was all she said.
“You had a bit too much to drink last night, it seems.” He made a phantom tipping motion.
“I crashed because of the wolf. It was an accident.”
“The wolf?” Graham said, and he seemed genuinely amused. “Do tell. I’ve heard some good ones, but that takes the cake.”
Before he could continue to chide her, Regina Mills burst into the station, eyes wide. She went directly to Graham.
Emma, groggy, sat upright.
“Henry’s run away again,” Regina said. “We have to—”
She saw Emma in the cell. “What is she doing here?”
Before waiting for an answer, Regina strode over to the cell. “I see. This is not a coincidence, is it? Do you know where he is?” she demanded.
“Lady, I haven’t seen him since I left your place,” she said. She found herself much less interested in civility than she’d been the night before. She looked at Graham. “I got an alibi. Two, actually. This guy and a wolf.”
Graham nodded. “Well, I can vouch, at least. She’s been here all night.”
“He wasn’t in his room this morning,” Regina said, and Emma could hear the real concern in her voice.
“How about his friends?” Emma said. “You tried them?”
“He doesn’t have any.”
Emma frowned. She didn’t like to hear that piece of information. It reminded her a little too much of herself.
“Every kid’s got friends. What about his computer? Did you check his email?”
“And you know this how?”
“I find people, lady, that’s my job,” Emma said. “Don’t get all worked up. Let me out of here and I’ll find him. Free of charge.”
Regina and Graham shared a look.
“Then I’ll go home,” she added. She looked at Graham for a long time, making sure he understood the deal.
“Computers aren’t exactly my specialty,” Graham said. “And she does seem to know what she’s talking about.”
Regina, frustrated, turned on her heel and headed for the door. “Fine. Bring her. I just want to find my son. I don’t care how.”
They drove back to Regina’s house, Emma in the back, looking out at the town, none of them speaking. Once inside, Regina led them up to Henry’s room, and Emma went directly to the computer.
“Kid’s smart,” she said, after a moment. “He cleaned out his inbox.” She dug out her key ring and held up a little flash drive. “Lucky for both of you, I’m smart, too. Little hard-drive utility I like to use.” She inserted it into Henry’s USB port and watched as the mirrored files detailing his recent activity transferred onto her drive.
“Does Henry have a credit card?” Emma asked.
“He’s too young,” Regina said, apparently irritated that she was making progress. “Of course not.”
“Well, he used one,” said Emma, reading from the screen. “That’s how he got his bus ticket. Who is… Mary Margaret Blanchard?” she asked.
Regina, arms still crossed, looked furious. “His teacher,” she said. “I’m going to kill her.”
“Aw, I’m sure he stole it from her,” Emma said. She stood up, closed Henry’s computer. “Come on. Let’s go to the school, then. Maybe she knows something.”
• • •
Again they rode in silence; only this time Emma couldn’t wait to get home, get back to her normal life. She looked at the back of Regina’s head, her hair perfectly sculpted and trapped in place. You can’t just insert yourself into someone else’s life. Maybe this woman was a bitch, sure, but she had raised Henry. Emma owed her respect. She owed her space. She had been out of line. Find him, get out—that’s what she would do.
She had nearly said something to this effect when Graham chirped up. “Here we are, then,” he said. They’d arrived at the school.
Mary Margaret Blanchard looked, somehow, exactly like Emma had expected her to look based on her name: petite and pretty, with close-cropped dark hair, at once both demure and—judging by the sparkle in her eye—potentially somewhat feisty. They arrived just as her class was filing out of the room, and when Regina asked her about her credit card, she paused for a moment, thinking. Emma could see that she was remembering the precise moment Henry had tricked her and stolen it, even before she went to her purse to check. She nodded, looking through her wallet. “Clever boy,” she said. “I never should have given him that book.”
“What is this book I keep hearing about?” Regina said.
“It’s a book of stories I thought might help Henry,” she said. “He’s a creative boy. He’s special. We both know that. He needed stimulation.”
Regina seemed to have heard enough, or to have detected an insult in what Miss Blanchard said. She huffed, shook her head, and turned to Graham. “Come on, let’s go find Henry. This is useless.” She turned back to Mary Margaret. “What he needs, Miss Blanchard, is a reality. Facts. Truth. He doesn’t need stories.”
Mary Margaret said nothing, merely raised her eyebrows. Regina stormed out of the room, followed by Graham.
Mary Margaret smiled kindly at Emma. “Welcome to Storybrooke?” she said, and this time it sounded more like a joke, and Emma smiled. Feisty was right—she liked this woman.
“I’m afraid this is partly my fault,” Mary Margaret said, crossing the room and beginning to organize her desk. “He’s been so alone lately. I just thought he needed stories.” She thought about this for a moment, then looked at Emma. “What do you think stories are for?”
“Burning up some time?” Emma offered. She thought it was a strange question to ask.
“I think they’re a way for us to understand our own world,” Mary Margaret said. “In a new way.” She shook her head. “Regina is sometimes hard on Henry, but his problems go so much deeper than that. He’s like so many adopted children—angry, confused. Wondering why anyone could have ever—” She stopped herself, realized who she was talking to. Emma had felt herself tearing up and was glad Mary Margaret hadn’t said it out loud. It was the chink in her armor, talking about parents.
“It’s okay,” Emma said quickly. “It’s old news.”
“I don’t mean to judge,” Mary Margaret said. “I apologize. I think I gave Henry the book just to give him what no one around here seems to have. A new feeling. The feeling of hope.”
She sounded sad—strong and sad at the same time. Emma realized that Mary Margaret was talking about herself.
“You know where he is, don’t you?” Emma said.
Mary Margaret cocked her head and sighed. “Well,” she said. “I can’t say for sure. But you might want to try his castle.”
• • •
She did.
Henry’s “castle” was a bit of a dump.
That’s what Emma thought, anyway, as she pulled up to the playground near the edge of town. It was beside the ocean and it overlooked the breakwater. From her VW, Emma could see Henry sitting on the second floor of a shoddy wooden structure with a single spired roof. He was cross-legged, staring down. She reached for his book.
“You can’t keep running away, kid,” Emma said to him, once she’d trudged up to the rickety structure. “People will worry.”
“No they won’t,” he said. “They don’t care.”
“I got your book,” she said. “You left it in my car.”
He took it and said, “This is supposed to be the start of the final battle. The whole big thing.”
“At some point you gotta grow up and move past this stuff, Henry,” she tried. “Stories are great. But eventually you have to look at the real world.” She didn’t like how mu
ch she sounded like Regina, but it was true—it wasn’t good to believe in things that weren’t true. It left you vulnerable. That was pretty much the only life lesson she had to offer, and she lived by it.
“You don’t have to be mean.”
“Kid, that’s not—”
“But it’s okay, I know why you gave me away.”
Emma felt her throat tightening. He was looking at her now, a sweet smile on his face. God, Emma thought. This kid knows how to get me.
“You wanted to give me the best chance I could have,” he said. “I know you did it for me.”
She couldn’t keep the tears from welling in her eyes. She wanted to pick him up and hug him, hold him to her chest. She’d given him away once, and now here she was, doing it all over again… and somehow, it didn’t hurt any less this time around.
She managed to say, “How—how do you know that, Henry?”
“Because it’s exactly why Snow White gave you up,” he said, proud of himself for his logic.
Emma looked at the book in his lap. Stories to help us understand our world. Mary Margaret did have a point about that.
“We have to get you home, Henry,” she said. “I’m not in that book. There’s not gonna be a final battle. But I am real. And I do want you in my life. Somehow.”
“Don’t make me go back there.”
“Where?” she said. “To your home? Where people care about you? I never had that. They found me on the side of a highway. That’s where my parents left me. I was in the foster system when I was your age. The closest I ever came to having what you have is three months here, three months there. And then I got sent back. You have something stable, something good. You’re safe, Henry. You’re wanted.”
“They didn’t leave you on the side of the highway, though,” Henry insisted. “That’s just where you came through. In the wardrobe.”
Emma had no idea what wardrobe he was talking about, but she could see he wasn’t going to be able to give up his fantasy. Not yet. Maybe soon, maybe in a few years. Maybe when he found out about girls. But she was tired of trying to talk him into a reality. “Come on, kid,” she said, holding out her hand. “Let’s get you home.”
• • •
“Stay with me.”
Snow White had found him on the floor, bleeding, barely conscious. He’d been run through, and he lay still now, quietly staring at the ceiling, his breath shallow, his eyes glassy. Snow held her beloved’s hand, weeping. She was now too weak to move—she had used all of her energy to get to him. The Queen’s soldiers had invaded the castle, searching the wardrobe and the rest of the workshop, ignoring her as she tended to her dying husband. But he had succeeded. Baby Emma was safe. The wardrobe had gone through to the other side. She kissed him on the cheek. “Stay with me, my love,” she whispered.
“Oh, how truly lovely.”
Snow White shuddered at the sound of the voice. She’d heard it her whole life; she’d heard it grow colder and colder over the years. She’d heard hope and happiness seep out of it day by day. She’d heard it at the wedding.
Snow looked up at the Queen, who was looking disdainfully at one of her own knights.
“The child?” she said. “Give her to me.”
“Gone,” the knight said gruffly. “Disappeared.”
“Disappeared to where?” the Queen demanded.
“She’s safe,” said Snow. “And that means you’ll lose, eventually. You will always lose. It’s because of what you are. Good will always win.”
“Spare me,” said the Queen. “Good does not always win. In fact, good almost always loses, my pretty young thing. You’re brainwashed by this ridiculous world, do you know that? No, of course you don’t. Try a week in a different realm. Try having a monster for a parent. That’ll teach you to grow up fast.”
She was looking at the doorway. The green-and-purple mist Snow White had seen from the window had finally reached them here in the castle—it billowed in around them as though the room were flooding with pure hatred. The mist, somehow, was the curse. The Queen smiled, opened her arms. Snow White, eyes wide, held on to Charming as the castle began to tremble. She felt dizzy, but then realized that the room itself was spinning… cracking open. Strange objects showed themselves in the cracks in the sky, a wild wind howled through the room. Snow White heard what she thought was screaming. “Where…” she said. “Where are we going?” she yelled.
“To that other world, my dear,” laughed the Queen, eyes insane, arms now up over her head. “A place where the only happy ending is my own.”
• • •
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Emma watched Regina run from the doorstep of her home, relieved to see her son. She gathered him up at the door of the car and hugged him for a long moment. Henry abided it, but did not hug back. Again Emma was reminded that whatever thorny edge Regina had about her, she did care for Henry.
After a moment, he disengaged from his mother’s embrace and ran into the house.
Regina watched him go, and Emma saw the slamming door seem to cause Regina a moment of physical pain.
Regina turned back to Emma. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“He seems to have taken quite a shine to you.”
“You know something crazy?” Emma said. “Yesterday was my birthday, and when I blew out the candle, my wish was that I wouldn’t have to spend my birthday alone. And right when I blew it out, he showed up.” She hadn’t really considered the coincidence.
Regina watched her coolly. “I hope there’s no misunderstanding here.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is not an invitation back into his life. You made your choice. Ten years ago. It’s hard enough to be a single mother. It’s even harder to compete with a stranger filling his head with stories about Twinkies and fun times and whatever comes into her head.”
“I don’t—”
“And in the last decade while you’ve been doing God knows what, I’ve been here, changing every diaper, nursing every sickness, doing the difficult work. You may have given birth to him but he’s my son.”
Emma couldn’t compete with that and she didn’t want to even try. “I wasn’t—”
“No, you don’t get to talk,” Regina said, her voice becoming angrier. She took a step forward. “You don’t get to do anything. Do you remember what a closed adoption is? Do you remember that that’s what you asked for? You? You have no legal right to Henry. You’re going to be held to that. I suggest that you get into your car and leave this town forever. Immediately. If you don’t, I will destroy you if it’s the last thing I do.”
Emma was stunned. She stared back at Regina, who’d worked herself up into a rage with the speech. And again Emma had that same feeling: The more Regina wanted her out, the more she wanted to stay.
Her heart pounding, Emma nearly turned to go. But she thought of one more thing she wanted to ask.
“Do you love him?” she said.
Regina looked surprised, then angry.
“Of course I love him,” she spat.
And she turned and went back inside.
• • •
Emma was not sure what came over her as she drove down Main Street. She decided not to think too much about it. She had a bad habit of doing that. Instead, when she saw the sign for Granny’s B&B, a sudden certainty overcame her: She knew she couldn’t leave Henry. Not again.
She stopped the car.
Inside the B&B, Emma came upon a silver-haired woman in the midst of a heated argument with a young, black-haired girl. “It’s my house, and they’re my rules. You cannot stay out all night.”
“I should have moved to Boston,” the girl said dismissively.
“I’m so sorry that my heart attack prevented you from sleeping your way along the Eastern Seaboard!” yelled the woman, and just as she did, Emma cleared her throat, and she spun. She gave Emma a sweet smile. Emma asked for a room. The girl stared at her impassively.
“Of course, of course!” said the older woman, going to the counter. “We have a lovely room available.”
“Great,” said Emma.
“And what’s your name, dear?” the woman asked, writing in a ledger.
“Emma,” she said. “Emma Swan.”
“Emma,” came a man’s voice. “What a lovely, lovely name.”
Emma turned to see a strange, silken-haired, suited man standing behind her.
He held a cane and watched her curiously, then strolled up to the register, eyeing the old woman.
“Thanks,” said Emma.
“Everything is in order,” said the woman, and Emma could see that she was visibly intimidated by the man, whoever he was. “It’s all here.” She held an envelope toward him.
“Yes, of course it is,” said the man, taking it. “I trust you completely.” Emma saw the bulge of cash peeking out of the top of the envelope.
The man smiled again at Emma. “Lovely to meet you, Ms. Swan. Perhaps we’ll be seeing one another.”
He nodded and strolled out of the room.
“Who was that guy?” Emma asked, once he was gone.
“That was Mr. Gold,” said the girl conspiratorially. “He owns this place.”
“The B and B?”
“No,” said the old woman. “The whole town.”
Emma raised her eyebrows. “Huh,” she said.
“Here’s a key for you.” She handed Emma a large metal key, almost comical in its artful flourishes. Nothing in this town was normal, it turned out. “How long will you be staying?”
“Just a week,” Emma said, looking at the key. “Just one week.” That was what she needed to make sure Henry was okay. She had to. What else made any kind of sense? She had to know about her son. She had to stay near him now that she’d found him. What else could a person do?
“A week!” cried the woman. “So wonderful. Welcome to Storybrooke.”
Emma took the key.
Outside, the second hand on the clock tower began to move.
CHAPTER 2
THE THING YOU LOVE MOST
